Motherese in the Wichi Language

• Taverna, Andrea S. ^[1]
  1. [1] Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (Argentina)
• Localización: Journal for the Study of Education and Development, Infancia y Aprendizaje, ISSN-e 1578-4126, ISSN 0210-3702, Vol. 44, Nº 2, 2021 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Child language and development contexts / Lenguaje infantil y contextos de desarrollo), págs. 303-335
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.1080/02103702.2021.1889290
• Títulos paralelos:
  • El maternés en la lengua wichí
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Dialnet Métricas: 1 Cita
• Resumen
  • español

    Este trabajo provee la primera evidencia acerca del maternés o habla materna infantil (HMI) en el wichí, una lengua indígena de morfología compleja, hablada en la región del Gran Chaco, en Argentina. El corpus está conformado por 22 horas de video-grabaciones de la vida cotidiana de tres infantes desde su etapa mono-morfémica (MLE = 1) hasta la emergencia de las combinaciones entre morfemas (MLE = 2.30). Mediante un enfoque metodológico mixto, los resultados permitieron: (a) crear un sistema observacional de categorías específicas para el análisis del HMI wichí; (b) identificar un particular registro de habla materna (maternés) en esta cultura, considerablemente estable a través de los casos, organizado en clases de constelaciones de rasgos lexicales, pragmático-discursivos y prosódicos con cambios y continuidades durante el período de estudio. Los resultados se discuten transculturalmente a la luz de un renovado enfoque cultural al tiempo que se señalan limitaciones y direcciones futuras.

  • English

    This paper provides the first evidence of maternal speech — motherese — in Wichi, an indigenous language with a complex morphology spoken in the Gran Chaco region of Argentina. The corpus consists of 22 hours of video recordings from the daily life of three children, starting from their one-morpheme utterance period (MLU = 1) to the onset of combining early morphemes (MLU = 2.30). Employing a mixed methodological approach, results allowed us: (a) to create an observational system of specific categories for the analysis of the maternal speech in Wichi; (b) to identify motherese in Wichi, noticeably stable across cases and organized into constellations of lexical, pragmatic-discursive and prosodic features with changes and continuities during the developmental target period. The results are discussed cross-culturally in the light of a renewed cultural approach, while limitations and future directions are addressed.

• Referencias bibliográficas
  • Austin, J. (1962). How to do things with words. Clarendon Press.
  • Baiocchi, M., Waxman, S., Pérez, E., Pérez, A., & Taverna, A. (2019). Social-ecological relations among animals serve as a conceptual...
  • Brown, R. (1973). A first language. The early stages. Harvard University Press.
  • Chavajay, P., & Rogoff, B. (1999). Cultural variation in management of attention by children and their caregivers. Developmental Psychology,...
  • De León Pasquel, L. (2012). Language socialization and multiparty participation frameworks. In A. Duranti, E. Ochs, & B. Schieffelin (Eds.),...
  • Demuth, C. (2013). Protoconversation and protosong as infant’s socialization environment. In T. M. S. Tchombe, B. Nsamenang, H. Keller, &...
  • Escuela Wichí Lako. (2010). Informe anual. Ministerio de Educación de la Provincia de Formosa.
  • Ferguson, C. A. (1964). Baby talk in six languages. American Anthropologist, 66(6), 103–114. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1964.66.suppl_3.02a00060
  • Ferguson, C., & Snow, C. (1977). Talking to children: Language Input and Acquisition. Cambridge University Press.
  • Garnica, O. (1977). Some prosodic and paralinguistic features of speech to young children. In C. E. Snow, & C. A. Ferguson (Eds.), Talking...
  • Greenacre, M. J. (1984). Theory and applications of correspondence analysis. Academic Press.
  • Hall, E. (1966). The hidden dimension. Doubleday.
  • Hill, C. E. (1990). Exploratory in-session process research in individual psychotherapy: A review. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology,...
  • Hoff-Ginsberg, E. (1991). Mother-child conversation in different social classes and communicative settings. Child Development, 62(4), 782–796....
  • Huttenlocher, J., Vasilyeva, M., Waterfall, H. R., Vevea, J. L., & Hedges, L. V. (2007). The varieties of speech to young children. Developmental...
  • Mastin, J. D., Marchman, V., Elwood-Lowe, M., & Fernald, A. (2016, May). Quantity & quality of child-directed speech (CDS) predict...
  • McDonald, L., & Pien, D. (1981). Mother conversational behavior as a function of interactional intent. Journal of Child Lunguage , 9(2),...
  • Medin, D. L., Ojalehto, B., Marin, A., & Bang, M. (2013). Culture and epistemologies: Putting culture back into the ecosystem. In Y. Hong,...
  • Nercesian, V. (2014). Wichi lhomtes. Estudio de la gramática y la interacción fonologíamorfología-sintaxis-semántica. LINCOM.
  • Ochs, E., & Schieffelin, B. B. (1984). Language acquisition and socialization: Three developmental stories. In R. Shweder, & R. LeVine...
  • Ramirez, M. L., Migdalek, M., Stein, A., Cristia, A., & Rosemberg, C. (2016). La función pragmática de las emisiones dirigidas a bebés....
  • Sachs, J. (1977). The Adaptive Significance of Linguistic Input to Prelinguistic Infants. In C. E. Snow & C. A. Ferguson (Eds.), Talking...
  • Sachs, J., Brown, R., & Salerno, R. (1972). Adults’ speech to children. In W. von Raffler-engel, & Y. Lebrun (Eds.), Baby talk and...
  • Schieffelin, B. B. (1985). The acquisition of Kaluli. In D. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition (pp. 525–593)....
  • Shneidman, L., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2012). Language input and acquisition in a Mayan village: How important is directed speech? Developmental...
  • Shneidman, L. A., Arroyo, M. E., Levine, S. C., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2013). What counts as effective input for word learning? Journal...
  • Snow, C., & Ferguson, C. (Eds.). (1977). Talking to children. Cambridge University Press.
  • Stoll, S. (2009). Crosslinguistic approaches to language acquisition. In E. L. Bavin (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of child language (pp....
  • Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research. Grounded eory. Procedures and techniques. Sage Publications.
  • Taverna, A., Medin, D. L., & Waxman, S. R. (2018). ‘Inhabitants of the earth’: Reasoning about folkbiological concepts in Wichi children...
  • Taverna, A., & Waxman, S. (2020). Early lexical acquisition in the Wichi language. Journal of Child Language, 47(5), 1052–1072. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000919000898
  • Taverna, A. S., Medin, D. L., & Waxman, S. (2020). Tracing culture in children’s thinking: A socioecological framework in understanding...
  • Taverna, A. S., Waxman, S. R., Medin, D. L., & Peralta, O. A. (2012). Folkbiological concepts: New evidence from Wichí children and adults....
  • Taverna, A. S., Waxman, S. R., Medin, D. L., Peralta, O. A., & Moscoloni, N. (2014). Naming living things: Linguistic, experiential and...
  • Ward, J. (1963). Hierarchical grouping to optimize an objective function. Journal American Statistic Association, 58(301), 236–244. https://doi.org/10.1080/01621459.1963.10500845